British tech billionaire Mike Lynch is missing and probably dead after a freak waterspout sank his yacht where it had been moored off the coast of Sicily early Monday morning, just months after the 59 year-old was acquitted in US federal court on charges he had fraudulently inflated the value of his company before entering a deal to sell it to Hewlett Packard, NBC News reports.

Take that you prick. The bad news is that one other passenger is confirmed dead and six more are listed as missing. The good news is that a one year-old girl and her parents miraculously survived.

Dacono, Colorado Mayor Adam Morehead on Monday gave an oration announcing he’s ready for a second go of it if voters will take it again in November, the Longmont Daily Times reports.

“We’re just now taking off,” Morehead said of the town’s economy. “I want to see prosperity here… I want people to want to live here. I want people to be able to shop and have services here.”

If you want to help spend Kamala's dollars, and diminish her chance of winning, follow this tutorial. https://t.co/wqlRr8Essh

— Ron (@CodeMonkeyZ) August 19, 2024

One wonders how this political wunderkind – widely believed to be the real voice behind the enigmatic secret agent “Q” and thus the father of the QAnon cult – placed seventh out of seven in the 2022 Arizona 2nd Congressional District Republican primary with this level of acumen. He should’ve AT LEAST cracked fifth place if he knows exactly what language to use to activate people to deplete other campaigns’ ad spend budgets 35 cents with every malicious click.

Lying piece of shit Republican former Long Island Congressman George Santos on Monday pleaded guilty to two felonies – wire fraud and aggravated identify theft – agreeing to pay restitution of at least $373,749.97 and looking at prison sentence probably around six to eight years in the clink to be determined at a later hearing, CBS News’s Scott MacFarlane reports from Long Island.

Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign spokesman James Singer tells NBC News that Harris would push for a 28 percent corporate tax rate, calling it “a fiscally responsible way to put money back in the pockets of working people and ensure billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share.”

“As President, Kamala Harris will focus on creating an opportunity economy for the middle class that advances their economic security, stability, and dignity,” Singer wrote in an email.

It’s probably doable even if Harris would be stuck with GOP majorities in either chamber of Congress as convicted felon former President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts – which lowered the corporate rate from 35 to 21 percent expire in late 2025, giving her leverage to negotiate with the pro-billionaire shitbag party on a new tax regime going forward from there. Better to have trifecta though.

Day One of the Democratic National Convention means it’s also day one of the tired, demented old man’s attempts to draw attention back on himself, this time at some factory in York, Pennsylvania.

Continuing his whiny Truth Social caterwauling about having to face Vice President Kamala Harris in November, convicted felon former President Trump on Monday posted “The Democrats staged the first ever ‘Coup’ in America. Crooked Joe Biden was told, ‘Sorry Joe, you’re losing to Trump, BIG, and you can’t beat him – You’re Fired.’ So now, for the first time in American history, I’ll have to beat TWO Candidates, the second being a Radical Left Marxist, Comrade Kamala Harris.”

“It’s not fair, perhaps even another form of Election Interference, but the good news is that she should be easier than to beat than Crooked Joe in that the USA will never allow itself to become a Communist Country. THE DEMOCRATS ARE, ‘A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY?'” Trump continued.

We thought the “honeymoon” was over and Trump was guaranteed to sail to victory after he successfully reset his campaign and focused on the issues finally instead of crying like a bitch.

The Attorney General serves as the sole legal counsel to the Executive Branch of state government, does not have a legal conflict in doing so and further is not required to engage other counsel at the direction of a client. The State Election Board is not empowered to direct the Attorney General to conduct an investigation under Title 21 whether on his own or through outside investigators.”

“The Election Code does not empower the Attorney General to act on his own as an investigator beyond the limited context of a referral of a case to the Attorney General for potential criminal prosecution as referenced in OCGA § 21-2-31(5). While this Office has not received a written request, we have become aware of requests directed to this Office by action of the State Election Board (‘SEB’) at its meeting held on August 7, 2024. This opinion is written to officially address the law related to two of those requests. First, the action of the SEB made certain requests related to this Office and the engagement of outside counsel. The SEB directed this Office ‘to seek advice of conflicts counsel to determine who should represent the Board in investigating this matter.'”

“The SEB further directed that this Office provide a report regarding such advice and report to the SEB such that the SEB ‘may hire outside legal counsel and investigators.’ The authority to determine whether to engage and to engage outside counsel rests exclusively with the Attorney General. This Office is not required to engage outside counsel at the direction of a client. Nor is a client of this Office entitled to engage legal counsel on its own without the express approval of the Attorney General,” says Republican Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr in an official opinion.

There’s been a lot of hype around this newly MAGAfied state election board recently, with libs worried that they’re going to fuck around in November if Kamala Harris wins the state. Lawfare’s Anna Bower recently explained that, for now, the hype is just that, and the board has no statutory authority to fuck around. That the Republican AG just told them “Lol, no” when they demanded that he re-investigate the 2020 election should tell inform how much authority they have.

US Secretary of State Tony Blinken on Monday announced that Israeli dictator Benjamin Netanyahu’s regime have accepted the US-Egypt-Qatar ceasefire and hostage release proposal to pause the destructive bombing of Gaza and called on Hamas to do the same, the Associated Press reports.

Complete twat Senators Ron “RonAnon” Johnson and Rick “Skeletor” Scott are holding what’s billed as an official Trump Campaign press conference at the Trump Tower in Chicago… without Trump himself. They’ll to start taking questions at some point within the next 10 or 20 minutes, maybe.

UPDATE 8/19/2024 1:01 PM EDT: Rick and RonAnon sucked so badly at answering reporters’ questions in Chicago that the Fox affiliate switched to JD Vance rallying in Philadelphia.

“Moscow will provide assistance to any foreigners who want to escape the neoliberal ideals being put forward in their countries and move to Russia, where traditional values reign supreme, according to a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin,” says the Kremlin via TASS and it gets better.

“Under the document, such foreign nationals will have the right to apply for temporary residence in Russia ‘outside the quota approved by the Russian government and without providing documents confirming their knowledge of the Russian language, Russian history and basic laws.’ Applications may be based on the rejection of their countries’ policies ‘aimed at imposing destructive neoliberal ideals on people, which run counter to traditional Russian spiritual and moral values.’ The values are listed in the foundations of Russia’s state policy in this field, while the Russian government is expected to compile a list of countries imposing unhealthy attitudes on their citizens.”

“The Foreign Ministry has been instructed to start issuing three-month visas to such applicants as early as in September. In February, Putin supported the idea of Italian student Irene Cecchini that Russia should ease entry rules for those who share traditional cultural and family values. The head of state agreed that each case requires an individual approach,” the statement continued.

Officials in Memphis, Tennessee are finding themselves confronted with an existential question with all sorts of moral implications requiring them to sacrifice one for the other, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reports on an impossible conundrum for which there is no one “right” answer.

Well actually it was a pretty easy call for Memphis Area Transit Authority: The brakes on the trolleys are all fucked up so they have to take the system offline until they figure out a fix. Luckily no one was injured in the two separate incidents in which one of the railcars slammed into the door of their storage barn. In another an operator was required to use “dynamic braking to safely bring the vehicle to a stop,” without being vexed into an agonizing but utilitarian outcome to the dilemma.

Joe Biden MUST be impeached and today’s report released by the Oversight, Ways and Means, and Judiciary Committees proves it.

In January 2021, on his first full day in office, I filed articles of impeachment against Joe Biden for his abuse of power, corruption, and quest to… pic.twitter.com/U0HcQBJNA9

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) August 19, 2024

Asked why the fuck he would say the Presidential Medal of Freedom – which can be awarded to anyone the president choses – convicted felon former President Trump over the weekend told a local Pennsylvania reporter that he “only heard when I say ‘better,’ I would rather, in a certain way, get it, because people that get the Congressional Medal of Honor – which I’ve given to many – are often horribly wounded or dead. They’re often dead. They get it posthumously. When you get the Congressional Medal of Honor – I always consider that to be the ultimate, but it is a painful thing to get it. When you get the Presidential Medal of Freedom, it’s usually for other things, like you’ve achieved great success in sports or you’ve achieved great success someplace else,” CNN reports.

Former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly, a former Marine Corps general who confirmed to CNN last year that the fat bastard did in fact call fallen service members “suckers and losers,” commented to the network Monday, saying “Think of Normandy, Iwo Jima, Vietnam or Fallujah. The Medal of Honor is earned, not won, by incredibly brave actions on the battlefield under fire typically by very young men who joined when others did not to defend their country. To the service member, the oath is sacred and taken with the understanding that one could be seriously wounded, captured or killed in living up to the words. No president, member of Congress, judge or political appointee – and certainly no recipient of the Presidential Medal – will ever be asked to give life or limb to protect the Constitution. The two awards cannot be compared in any way. Not even close.”

“This letter addresses defendant’s August 14, 2024 letter requesting an adjournment of the sentencing date. The People defer to the Court on the appropriate post-trial schedule that allows for adequate time to adjudicate defendant’s CPL § 330.30 motion while also pronouncing sentence ‘without unreasonable delay.’ To assist the Court, we note the following points.”

“Defendant’s letter indicates for the first time his intent to seek interlocutory state or federal appellate review, before he is sentenced, of any adverse ruling on his CPL § 330.30 motion. It is correct that the denial of immunity from prosecution is immediately appealable. But here, in contrast to defendant’s criminal case in DC, the question of defendant’s immunity from prosecution is not presented; the only question now before the Court is whether a small subset of the trial evidence was improperly admitted in light of a brand-new evidentiary rule that derives from official-acts immunity, and if so, whether any error in admitting official-acts evidence was harmless.’ The Supreme Court’s recent decision did not consider whether a trial court’s ruling on that distinct evidentiary question is immediately appealable, and there are strong reasons why it should not be.”

“Nonetheless, given the defense’s newly-stated position, we defer to the Court on whether an adjournment is warranted to allow for orderly appellate litigation of that question, or to reduce the risk of a disruptive stay from an appellate court pending consideration of that question. The People are prepared to appear for sentencing on any future date the Court sets,” writes Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office to Judge Juan Merchan ahead of the September 18th sentencing date.

TLDR: The Supreme Court purposely fucked them by waiting until the trial was over to issue a ruling throwing into doubt whether the small amount of evidence that could conceivably fall under the purview of their ruling had been admissible, so Bragg is content to wait for the next move.

“The Radical Left protesters in Chicago are going after the Democrat Party because the know they are weak and ready to break into a full blown party of Socialism or, if they really do their job, and with a little bit of luck, the Communist Party of the United States of America. They are already very close and, having a Marxist trained and believing President whose father is a Marxist professor, Comrade Kamala Harris, stranger things have happened!” posted convicted felon former President Trump on Monday, apparently pleading for the far-left pro-Palestine protestors amassing in Chicago to storm the arena and violently seize control of the Dem Party during the convention.

Or maybe Trump’s trying to say they hate “the Democrat Party” for being socialist.

It wasn’t an all that fully-formed of a thought. Trump must not be feeling well. Later he posted “CRIME IN AMERICA IS OUT OF CONTROL. I AM GOING TO MAKE IT, ALONG WITH THE ECONOMY, INFLATION, STRONG BORDERS, AND ENERGY DOMINANCE, MY TOP PRIORITY. THE DEMOCRATS ARE HOLDING THEIR CONVENTION IN CHICAGO IN ORDER TO SHOWCASE IT, AND YET 117 PEOPLE WERE SHOT, 17 KILLED, ON THE FOURTH OF JULY WEEKEND, 40 WERE SHOT THIS WEEKEND.”

“THAT IS A WAR ZONE, AND WILL BE HANDLED ACCORDINGLY. I WILL BRING CRIME IN AMERICA DOWN TO A TINY FRACTION OF WHAT IT IS TODAY. MOTHERS WILL NO LONGER BE LOSING THEIR CHILDREN BECAUSE WEAK, LIBERAL POLITICIANS HAVE GIVEN UP ON SECURING A CRIME FREE USA!!! I WILL STOP VIOLENT CRIME IN AMERICA!!!” he continued and yeah he’s probably suffering a mental health crisis. Ivanka might want to call some psychiatric care professionals to talk to him.

Two Arizonans who said the required paperwork naming them as electoral college representatives for Russian asset Cornel West – one who last week said her signature was forged, another who was involved but backed out after Joe Biden stepped aside – say that the Republican lawyers working to get West on the ballot in the state called and called and then finally knocked on their doors over the weekend to beg them to sign a letter attesting that they actually were on board, the AP reports.

“I am sorry… we have been calling the crap out of you,” Paul Hamrick, an attorney who has been involved in getting West on the ballot in other states, said in a voicemail to Jerry Judie, a retired park ranger who backed out of signing on as a West elector. “The reason we have been trying to get in touch with you is we found out in the last 24 hours we have got to have everybody sign a letter that Dr West has also signed.” When Judie told him he was backing out and now supporting Kamala Harris, Hamrick asked “Is there anything you can tell me about that or has anyone encouraged you not to be?” because everything has to be a Deep State conspiracy to the cocksuckers.

Neither Judie nor Denisha Mitchell, the other would-be West elector who said she’s filing an affidavit this week with the state attorney general’s office stating her paperwork was forged, answered the door for the lawyers. “We need to get this information in as soon as possible,” another GOP lawyer, Amanda Reeve, said to Mitchell in a Friday voicemail in which she said her firm represented “the Cornel West campaign,” warning Mitchell that the paperwork was “due tomorrow morning.”

The AP’s article notes at the end that “It is unclear whether West qualified for the ballot in Arizona.”

Former Trump DHS official-turned-anti-Trumper Elizabeth Neumann tells the Washington Post that the Orange God Emperor’s increasing bitching and whining over Kamala Harris ascending to the Dem nomination as a “coup” gives away that it will probably be the second coming of mail-in ballots during COVID as a the pretext for him and his cult to claim it was a “rigged” election if he loses.

“This is Donald Trump’s playbook: ‘There’s a deep state, they’re all out to get me.’ Even here – as he’s going to have to face a stronger, harder candidate to defeat – his default is, ‘Well, this couldn’t possibly be legal. This is a coup. This is wrong,’ even though there are no facts to back that up,” said Neumann. Former Republican Congressman Joe Walsh, who was MAGA until he wasn’t, echoed the observation, saying “They’re latching on to this, that what the Democrats just did, that’s a coup. This is what I hear all day. That was the attack on democracy. That’s what they’re going to do to push back on the legitimate charge that Trump tried to overthrow an election four years ago.

“I come from MAGA world. It’s working. They believe it,” Walsh continued. The Post quotes from Trump fans at the rally in Montana earlier this month saying shit like “I think that it’s almost like a coup to get Kamala Harris in there” and “The people, the Democrats, are getting cheated, and they don’t realize it, because they’re not getting to vote for their candidate” and that “It’s pretty sick.”

Michelle Obama will address the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, USA Today reported. https://t.co/wFc7EQkxaw https://t.co/X96iB6No7W

— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) August 19, 2024

Newsmax doesn’t actually say “OH MY GOD MICHELLE OBAMA IS GOING TO START A FLOOR FIGHT FOR THE NOMINATION! YESSSSS! YES!” They just want their readers to think it’ll happen, somehow.

Like why the fuck else would they report this (Never mind that Kamala Harris is already officially the nominee and there’s zero possibility this could actually happen anyway) and not that “RINO” former Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger will be there as a speaker to help create a permission structure for disaffected Republican voters to flip to Harris. Or that three women who suffered terribly from the abortion bans Trump made possible? They want to ignore such sources of angst and invite their fans to indulge in a “Dems in Disarray” fantasy, willing in existence that the Donks will be hopelessly riven going into the home stretch of the election season that looks less and less fun for MAGA.

House Republicans are already rolling their eyes at House Oversight Chairbilly James Comer’s plans to investigate Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for the “border czar” circlejerk and connections to China, respectively, with one anonymous member telling Axios the probes are “unnecessary… We have an election to win. Don’t make these people martyrs.”

“Moderate” Nebraska Congressman Don Bacon went on the record to say it’s “fair” and worth trying, but only if the investigations are handled “professionally.” We’ll just go ahead and say because it’s Comer this means that Bacon is not actually on board with these efforts. One member was in favor, saying “These will be the two most powerful people in our country. There has been no regular primary process. Congress has a legitimate oversight role to ensure we understand their roles and interests… this is the best way to bring light.” That member stayed anonymous, because despite the self-serving “legitimate oversight role” bullshit hedge, it was still a too obvious an admission that they only started these “investigations” because Joe Biden stepped aside – for reasons that had nothing to do with the spectacular failure that was the House GOP’s impeachment inquiry.

From a purely tactical view, this is actually what Republicans need to do. One more time with this point we keep hammering: When they piss and moan about Trump not “focusing on the issues” what they’re really saying is they need a new Benghazi or at the very least a more effective and original version of Hunter’s laptop. Manufacturing such “vulnerabilities” for Harris and Walz to hand to Trump so he can spew it at every stop on the trial is absolutely what the GOP should be doing.